CubinNY

2004 alone could be several episodes. Culminating in the clusterf finish to the season. People honestly like to relive disasters Craig Walter Brazell, I will never forget that guy and will never not hate Dusty for it.

It might be kind of cool to have Tim on as your first guest to talk about the genesis of NSBB way back when the ESPN boards and MLB were a cesspool. Talk about spikes in people signing up for the board, board and troll management (Modzilla), and the ups and downs of maintaining a website dedicated to the Cubs during good and bad runs. But, I would definitely focus most of the podcasts on the current team and climate. The trick will be trying to stay balanced with criticism if you want to try to attract media types or get some time with players or Cubs people.

This is so boring. Can't we lock them in a room and tell them to knock on the door when they have an agreement?

I mean, I don't think he's a HOfer but at least a somewhat honest case could be made for him unlike some people who are actually in the HOF. Here's a random observation: Bobby Abreu has absolutely zero HOF buzz yet he has more WAR than Vlad. It's hard for me to understand how one of the best offensive 2nd basemen in the history of the sport doesn't get into the HOF. He was kind of a dick and not that good of a fielder so those are minuses, but still. Lou Whitaker (7th all-time WAR) isn't in either.

Spartan fans everywhere are excited about that great choice So basically after Alabama and Georgia slaughter two of ND, UM or CIN we get to see if Georgia's secondary can learn how to play football after a month of practice. The SEC Championship game is usually the National Championship Game.

Best Saban win in five years

They’re dug in until they aren’t. They’ll come to some sort of agreement (good or not) before losing a season or part of a season. The thing that's [expletive] (not just now, but for the past forever years) is that ownership/Manfred always decry the chasm between the large and small market teams.....that they created themselves. It's an artificial complaint that they use for leverage and everyone knows its crap. One of the richest owners in the league is the owner of the Guardians, but he acts like he has no money. They're all billionaires; the large/small market thing is negligible. The owners are capitalists when it comes to the players and fans and socialists when it comes to them, much like late-stage capitalism in general.

I think it's an excuse. They haven't had much trouble recruiting. At ND all student's get top-level services from what they eat to everything else. I don't know how much has changed in 30 years, but my friends who went there and lived in the dorms had laundry service and they were just regular students. I've never seen a college that is more student-centered than ND. You’re completely wrong, and random students getting their laundry done 30 years ago has nothing to do with the football team having training facilities on par with other programs that have championship aspirations in 2021. Their recruiting has been solid, but not close to the top programs. That is due to a lot things (including things like academic standards that will never change), but a big part of it is the university’s willingness to consistently invest in the program. For example, today was the first day a Notre Dame assistant coach used a private jet to visit recruits, and schools like Alabama have been doing that for many years. Seems small, but stuff like that adds up when you claim you want your football program to compete with the Alabamas and Clemson’s of the world. You're full of horsefeathers. What does a private jet have to do with anything? Is the private jet for the recruit or the coach? It's not random students, it's all students. It's not like ND has a gym in a basement with water-filled weights and elastic band resistance machines. Give me a horsefeathering break. Kelly left for a 100 million reasons and all of them are dollar bills.

ND claims Kelly didn't ask for anything and that they're constantly looking at facilities upgrades (not that you'd expect them to say anything else, I guess). Some contract details are out and Kelly is due 90% of his remaining deal if he's fired without cause and 100% of it if he wins a national title and later gets fired. So he's basically guaranteed $90 million right now. Not bad work if you can get it. The administration has been delaying renovations to the athletic center for years despite apparently promising Kelly it was going to happen. And Kelly apparently asked for a meeting with the AD and President a few weeks back after LSU first approached him and he declined. Not to say that Kelly isn’t an horsefeathers for doing what he did, but hopefully this was the type of wake up call ND needed to realize that they need to upgrade facilities to compete with the true football factories. I think it's an excuse. They haven't had much trouble recruiting. At ND all student's get top-level services from what they eat to everything else. I don't know how much has changed in 30 years, but my friends who went there and lived in the dorms had laundry service and they were just regular students. I've never seen a college that is more student-centered than ND.

So did Miggy.

It's been almost 20 years since I saw him nearly take hitters' heads off with his out of control curveball in the minors. I would have taken the under on almost any bet involving his major league career length back then. I saw him pitch for the Dimond Jaxx's when he was trying to get his control back and threw three straight fastballs 8 feet high to the backstop in the first inning.

Hopefully Happ is gone That is my thinking, too. Hopefully they can package him with a prospect and come back with a decent pitcher who can strike people out.

And bring back Riz.

Now go get Carlos.

I don't really know what that means. Saban coached there, no? He's a proven commodity and as smarmy as any big-time coach. He'll fit right in because he will win. If he can't beat Alabama or to a lessor extent, Georgia, that's what will matter.

A lot of horsefeathering money for multiple years for his skillset. I mean, there is no subtext to this signing. He got a really, really good deal. The end.

7 different versions of crap isn't the diversity I was looking for. 31 flavors of suck. They are going to have a hard time scoring runs but only more consistently than before.

So far Cubs have signed complimentary players who could help a team trying to contend. Hopefully, they either make trades or sign a few players who are main guys. I'm hopeful but not optimistic.

Sour grapes? This is basically exactly how he left Cincinnati. They still hate him for it, justified or not. That's all I was pointing out. It's too bad he is leaving, he did a great job at ND. But onward and (hopefully) upward. I mostly agree. 'There is a right way and a wrong way to do this sort of thing. Kelly choose the wrong way. I'm guessing the story got leaked from the LSU side and he might not have had much choice.

:flythew:

There's no way in hell Turner and Judge don't get extended after how quiet the Yankees and Dodgers were this past weekend. If DeGrom opts out do we really think Cohen won't move heaven and earth to retain him? Nearly everyone else fun is tied to a team option, meaning they only make it to FA if they suck this year. We're likely left with Bogaerts, re-signing Willson, and a solid crop of mid rotation starters. Which is why, I'm leaning towards that they don't have any plans to be competitive in 2023 either. The plan is to maximize income uber alles. My highly uninformed opinion is that the Ricketts Kids are way overextended in the side real estate business ventures designed to suck money away from Cub fans and it's impinging on their ability to field a competitive baseball team. Edit: not to mention their network revenues not meeting expectations.

Sour grapes?

The lack of hearing about the Cubs in rumors (I know Stroman and a couple others we were mentioned amount 6-7 teams but for the most part its been quiet) means either they are likely not spending until after the lockout or all the stuff Jed and PTR said about a retool is BS. If its the latter why lie about it..to keep ST renewals high? I'm probably overreacting. The Cubs were probably not going to get a top FA and they hinted at that multiple times. The 1-3 year contract guys are mostly still out there, so perhaps the plan is still in place. It's just so horsefeathering quiet. It's so frustrating for me because there's a ton of middle ground between what the Rangers are doing (which is a lot of fun, but probably stupid) and pretending like 3+ year contracts are illegal. Like if the Cubs sign Trevor Story for $25M per year they'd have basically the same amount of money committed to 2024-2025 as the Brewers. Hardly backbreaking, even if he busts as bad as Heyward. Now there's plenty left in FA that we could still have the offseason I want, but to your point the silence is deafening. It does not seem like there's much fun waiting for us on the other side of the lockout, just nothing but a handful of Freddy Galvis and Kyle Seager types. Hopefully Jed just runs a really tight ship and we're all flipping out over nothing. I'd take Story on that deal. Just wait until they have their own TV network and own all the buildings on Sheffield and Waveland, then they will spend.

Didn't everyone already know this was going to be a crazy good offseason in terms of talent? Here are the Cubs with a ton of cash, no stars, and they sit on their hands because the timing isn't right or the price isn't right. I guess they can still bid on the dude from Japan.

Self-ownage at the highest level.